STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Imperial County District Attorney James Hamilton this morning blasted as illegal the hiring of a former assistant county attorney as an “assigned counsel” for indigent clients.
The hiring of former assistant county counsel John H. Pattie was done by the Board of County Supervisors in a resolution during last Monday’s meeting. The matter did not come up for any debate.
Under the resolution Pattie will be paid $1,000 a month, considerably more than assistant district attorneys, and more than Public defender Joseph Schmitt.
Hamilton explained that in effect Pattie will be deputy public defender. He has no argument about the legality of supervisors naming public defenders or deputy public defenders, but added that traditionally deputy public defenders have been named by the head public defender.
40 years ago
Imperial Valley College athletics will be shifted from the Student Personnel Division to the instructional side commencing July 1 as the result of a reorganization announced today by IVC President Daniel Angel.
It was one of five changes which involve a reorientation of responsibilities on the campus, most of which affect the area supervised by Dean Leptich, associate superintendent for student personnel.
Three of them are immediate.
Under Angel’s new organization, Reuben Lopez, director of the External College, and Dale Gares, registrar, will report directly to the college president. Formerly, the External College was in the instruction division, headed by Associate Superintendent John A. “Buck” DePaoli. Gares worked for Leptich.
30 years ago
CALIPATRIA — The Calipatria Hornets are now two games away from the state Division V boys basketball championship.
Robert Romero and Andrew Zendejas combined to score 76 points to lead Calipatria over Hesperia Christian, 103-85 here Thursday to advance to the state semifinals. They will face Bishops on Saturday in the Southern California regional championship game.
Calipatria came out of the locker-room red hot and stayed that way all game long. It led 45-31 at the half and led by more than 20 during the second half.
20 years ago
MEXICALI — Two El Centro men were arrested here after they led police on a high-speed chase Saturday night.
Men identified as Jonas Kaiser, 27, and Christian Celaya, 23, both of El Centro, were involved in a verbal confrontation with a female acquaintance of Kaiser’s when one of the men brandished a rifle and fired it. Sgt. Paul Longoria of the El Centro Police Department said it was not yet clear who or what was fired upon.
El Centro Police Officer Mike Davidson responded at 8:30 p.m. Saturday to the call about shots fired at McClure Trailer Park in El Centro and found the two suspects had fled in a brown pickup.